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Famous Latin American Cooking Recipes

By Mattie MacDonald


Latin American food is aromatic, tasty and colorful, simple and mostly easy to prepare. They use local ingredients, and that's why you will find many differences between different local cuisines. There are several really popular Latin American cooking recipes you can try preparing in your own kitchen.

Easy to prepare but really delicious Brazilian empanadas are definitely something you should start with. First you need to make a dough. Mix together three cups flour, ten tablespoons of butter, a little bit of salt and turmeric and six tablespoons of shortening. Add one egg and a half cup of beer and make the dough. Leave it to rest for at least fifteen minutes.

Now you have to prepare the filling. Chop one small onion and saute it on two tbs butter. Add two diced tomatoes and one small can of hearts of palms, diced in small pieces. Glaze with two spoons of Sherry, finishing with one tbs of tomato paste. Stir for two minutes on moderate heat and add diced shrimp, about half pound of them. Season with salt and pepper.

Flatten the dough into rounds, maybe three inches in diameter, and add a spoon of filling on each round. Brush edges with egg yolk, fold every piece in half and use a fork to seal the edges. Fry your empanadas in deep oil for four minutes. Oil should be on 190 degrees of Celsius.

Cuban sandwiches are highly popular, but people mostly add jalapenos and mayonnaise in them today. Traditional Cuban sandwiches don't contain such ingredients. You will need two slices of Cuban or French bread, yellow mustard, four pickle slices, four slices of ham and four slices of roast pork, and three slices of Swiss cheese. Put it in a sandwich press. You can add some butter as well.

Coconut rice is another traditional dish that is easy to prepare and tastes really great. You will need two cups of long grain rice, the same amount of water, one can of coconut milk, one or two tablespoons of sugar, some salt, half cup of good raisins and the same amount of toasted coconut flakes.

Cook rice in water, sugar and coconut milk. When water evaporates, cover the saucepan and cook on the lowest temperature for approximately twenty minutes. Remove from heat, add raisins, stir and cover the saucepan again. Sprinkle with toasted, crispy coconut flakes.

A type of doughnut called Churro is one really popular snack. There are so many different recipes for preparing it, and all are really simple. All you need is two cups of flour, water, salt, some sugar, according to your taste and four spoons of vegetable oil, and some salt.

Place three spoons of sugar, some salt and three spoons of vegetable oil in a saucepan and let it boil. Pour in two cups of flour and stir until you get a ball of dough. Make long strips using pastry bag. Fry in hot vegetable oil, until golden and drain on kitchen towels. Roll each doughnut in the mixture of cinnamon and sugar, and that's it. Simple, funny and delicious.




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